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Software Development through Games

Tag Archives: Windows

The last week has been a busy week. Since publishing the Dice Calculator to the Windows Phone Store and the Google Play Store, I’m up to about 70 installs. While that may not amaze most folks, I’m excited it’s starting to pick up.

Feedback

My friends were the first to download my app. Needless to say, since it was my first app published, I was a little excited. Within a few hours of them picking it up, I was already getting feedback.

The volume of the clicks is too loud

How do I roll two twenty-sided dice and get the highest or lowest

If I enter only a decimal and press the equal key, the app crashes

How do I roll fudge dice

Making Changes based on Feedback

Awesome. Loved it. Real people, real feedback. The next morning I awoke early and pounded out the fixes!

Added a settings dialog where you could set the volume for the application

Added support for H-high and L-low dice (e.g. 2D20H and 2d20L)

Fixed the bug with the error handling in the parser

Added support for a die type of ‘F’ for Fudge (fudge dice have two +’s, two -‘s and two blank sides)

While I was at it, I wanted to add some analytics to the application so I could understand how others around the world would be using the application. If anyone is curious, I went with Google Analytics.

Republish

With all of that done, I republished the updated version to both stores. It is certainly faster subsequent times. Well, except in the case of the Windows Phone Store. The first couple of updates, it usually only took about two hours. After adding the analytics, it took more than a day.

Next Steps – Windows Store Version / Tablet Version

Now I wanted to put the application on the Windows Store. This turned out to be a little more challenging. First, there is a lot more real estate on the screen. On the phone, I need to keep things large and accessible to touch. On the tablet, I can afford to utilize more space for my application and add some new features. Here’s the abbreviated list of features I wanted to add.

Revise the visual layout to take advantage of the additional real estate

Add support for a dice roll history

Add support to connect with friends at a virtual table and share dice rolls

This was a little more ambitious than simply porting the application directly. It took me several days of coding to get the layout updated, add the history and the virtual table work. Here’s a screenshot of where I landed.

The application has a better flow to it now, and in my early testing with a couple of friends, it was well received and generated a lot of interest in possible future features.

At this time, I’ve submitted it to the Windows Store. It can take a few days to get out there. In the meantime, I’ll start updating my main website. I’ll save those details for the next post